SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS : Freshman Steps Up, Pitches In

Last year, Jennifer Clark was a shy eighth-grader in the stands, watching Marina High School hand Mater Dei a first-round defeat in the Southern Section 5-A softball playoffs.

This year, Clark is still shy, but the freshman right-hander’s perspective on the 5-A playoffs has changed.

Clark will be Mater Dei’s starting pitcher against Marina in a semifinal game today at 3 at Heritage Park in Irvine.

She stepped to the forefront in March, when the Monarchs’ No. 1 pitcher, sophomore Terri Kobata, was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

Clark had been splitting starting assignments with her teammate, with Kobata taking on the tougher teams.

Clark has met the challenge of leading the county’s top-ranked softball team, going 15-1 with an 0.48 earned-run average and 108 strikeouts.

She has done it with equanimity beyond her years.

Not that she didn’t feel the pressure; she just didn’t show it.

“I felt the pressure was on,” Clark said. “I felt a little bit shaky, but I knew I could do it.”

Part of that confidence comes from experience. Clark, at 15, is no novice. She has been pitching since she was 8. Marina Coach Susie Calderon has even served as her tutor.

Last summer, she pitched the 14-and-under Bat Busters, a summer travel team, to the championship game in Chattanooga, Tenn.

“She has been put into situations with her travel ball team where she would come in with the bases loaded and no outs, and she doesn’t fold,” said her mother, Kathy Clark. “So stepping into a situation where she is the No. 1 pitcher all of a sudden really isn’t new to her.”

Neither is setting down challengers--batters or otherwise. She received plenty of training in that by putting her four younger brothers and little sister in place. “They think they’re all tough,” Clark said.

She puts her siblings in their place with the gentleness of a big sister, but with batters she is not so kind.

“My ball moves and I’m pretty fast,” Clark said. “When I want the job done, I do it and get them out.”

It is that attitude, her calm demeanor and her ability that has helped win over her teammates.

“She doesn’t show her worries,” Kathy Clark said. “She doesn’t seem to show her nervousness if she is worried.”

Clark’s catcher is senior Tracy Rice, the Angelus League’s most valuable player. She sometimes goes to the mound to calm Clark, but not often.

“She has very much impressed me,” Rice said. “She proved herself to the team by getting as many wins as she has. I try to go and keep her calm, but there really isn’t much I can do because she already does that herself. She keeps her composure well on the field and the other girls see that. I think they look to her because she is so calm, but she doesn’t know that.”

Rice says Clark’s ability to remain unemotional on the mound has relaxed her teammates. “We huddle up and laugh more,” Rice said. “We keep it very calm.”

That was evident in the first-round game against Katella. The Monarchs got behind early, 3-0, but the players were almost raucous and largely unconcerned. They came back with runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh to send the game into extra innings, and Mater Dei eventually won, 4-3, in the eighth.

The Monarchs are at their best when they are having a good time, Coach Cathy Quesnell said.

“A baseball coach came over when they were laughing and having a good time in the dugout and he said, ‘I can’t watch this broad ball.’ And I’m sure guys would be a lot more serious in a baseball dugout,” Quesnell said. “But once we get tense and try too hard, we are not too successful.”

Last year, with Kobata on the mound against Marina, the Monarchs tensed up in the first inning and allowed what turned out to be the winning run to score.

“I call it the freshman inning,” Quesnell said. “It’s where you get a little rattled and just get nervous. It is not so much that you blow it or necessarily choke. . . .

“J.C. (Clark) has already done it against Katella. She let in three earned runs in the fourth inning. All the other innings she was tough. She would tell (batters), ‘You’re going down, right now.’ Just that one inning she got (rattled) and the runs scored. Fortunately for us, we got the runs and won the game.”

Clark’s teammates have impressed upon her the significance of today’s game against top-seeded Marina (27-5), which defeated the fourth-seeded Monarchs (22-3) earlier this season.

“We want to beat them really bad. We want to get them back,” Clark said without a hint of shyness.